Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade Getting Ready to Roll

The new daytime parade for the Magic Kingdom is getting its finishing touches! Called the Disney Festival of Fantasy Parade, this new extravaganza is a celebration of New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom. The parade will bring beloved Disney and Pixar characters front and center with innovative parade floats, a new soundtrack featuring classic favorites from Disney films, a brand new original parade song, plus incredibly stunning costumes. There will be nearly 100 performers in all that help bring this parade to life.

“The parade celebrates and pays homage to what the Magic Kingdom is all about,” said Randy Wojcik, senior show director Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, Creative Entertainment. “It has the most beautiful floats, enchanting characters, vibrant costumes that come to life; and the choreography is just glorious. Yet, it is also very kinetic, relevant and powerful on a scale never seen before at Walt Disney World.”

There will be seven unique units comprised of nine spectacularly designed floats. The float by float line up includes:

The Princess Garden – This float celebrates Disney royalty. Cinderella, Tiana and Belle plus their Princes will ride among a garden of topiaries filled with woodland creatures, birds, and more. Cinderella’s dress will twirl like a turntable, and Swan Court couples lead the 50-foot-long float. In addition, Anna and Elsa from Frozen will on this float!

Little Mermaid – Ariel and her friends sit atop a colorful seashell music box. On this Under the Sea float there will be conga dancing fish and bubbles galore. Performers costumes will include shimmering fabrics and are runway inspired. Sea life represented will include the lion fish, coral fish, seashells, and seahorses.

Peter Pan – Straight from Never Land come Peter Pan and Wendy, soaring high aboard the Jolly Roger, complete with smoke effects and other special surprises. A rainbow arch shines over Skull Rock and Tinker Bell nestled among giant flowers, while Captain Hook takes center stage on a swinging anchor. With this float, the Lost Boys will kick up their heels to high-energy choreography.

Sleeping Beauty – The heroic Prince Phillip battles a Steampunk-inspired Dragon as the wicked Maleficent. This float stretches 53 feet in length and 26 feet tall with a prickly spinning wheel dead center of the float. With fiery eyes and glowing effects the spectacular dragon was built on an articulating chassis allowing the float to bend and flex as it moves along the parade route The unit will also include Prince Phillip, thorn-inspired stilt performers, dramatic raven dancers, plus the three good fairies, Flora, Fauna, and Merryweather.

Finale and Mickey’s Airship – The parade culminates with a 90-foot-long magical caravan of characters, featuring Pinocchio, Dumbo, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Mad Hatter, Pluto, and more in a carnival of color. There are Pegasus horses, dancing hippos, and sassy Bubble Girls with cotton-candy-like hair celebrating Storybook Circus in New Fantasyland. To end the parade, we’ll see Mickey and Minnie Mouse sit sky high in Mickey’s Airship.

Rikki Niblett

I am a co-host of the Be Our Guest Podcast and do lots of other fun Disney stuff all around the interwebs! You can follow me on Twitter or Instagram at @RikkiNibs or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/rikkinibs

Sounds great- we will be there in April to see it ourselves! One question, any rumors on if Hollywood Studios will replace their parade? As great as this sounds I am looking for something a little less “princess-y”. We love Toy Story, Incredibles etc and I was hoping one of the new parades would bring back more of Pixar.

Nicole…I’ve heard nothing about a replacement parade for Disney’s Hollywood Studios. But I, like you, would love to see a parade themed around Pixar character here. (Or really, just any parade will do.) There are really just so many intellectual properties that they could take advantage of here at the Studios.